


Footsteps

by romanticalgirl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted 2000</p>
    </blockquote>





	Footsteps

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 2000

Giles leaned against the door frame, watching as Willow sank down into her chair. Oz sat next to her, his smile solely for her. A sharp twinge of jealousy ran along Giles' spine and he chastised himself mentally. He had no right to be jealous. No right, no reason. She was a teenage girl, just recently legally an adult, and was perfectly happy in her relationship.  
"Giles, come see." Buffy waved him over, taking something from Willow's hands. "Look."

He took the letter, his eyebrows shooting up when he saw the letterhead. "Yale?"

"And Harvard," Buffy stated, handing him another letter. "And Brown and Sarah Lawrence and Vassar and Northwestern and…"

"I get the idea." He looked over at Willow. "Quite the selection. You've got a veritable handful of life-altering opportunities."

"Some German school wants her too," Xander added. "She's in demand all over the continent."

"Not everywhere, Xander," Willow reminded him. Her sad look hit Giles hard. It was quite obvious to him that some school, whichever one she had her heart set on, had turned her down. "I mean, I haven't gotten my acceptance letter from good old Sunnydale U."

"Right. The hotbed of educational opportunities," Buffy smirked. "If you're me, that is."

Willow shook her head, "It's a good school, Buffy."

"Right. Full of things to do and slay." She sighed as the bell rang. "Well, there goes the sound of my doom. French test."

Xander shuddered in sympathy. "Not me. Government and economics."

Buffy joined him in the shudder. "Ugh. I'd rather take French."

They stood, gathering their books. "You coming?" Xander asked the other couple.

Oz nodded, standing as well. "I've got band practice, actually. Done with classes for the day. You coming, Willow?"

"No. I think I'm going to stay here for a while, if that's all right with Giles. I have a free period and I have some research to do." She looked down at the assortment of letterheads. "I want to make the right choice."

"Leaving Sunnydale," Buffy noted. "That's got good written all over it."

***  
Willow sighed heavily and sat on the stairs leading down from the stacks. "Giles?"

He looked up from his book, removing the stem of his glasses from his mouth. "Yes, Willow?"

"Was it hard for you? Choosing a school?"

"Not really. I was accepted to Cambridge and to Oxford. And there was really only one choice." He grinned. "I only applied to Cambridge to irritate my father. He was an Oxford man and I was to be one as well. Whether I liked it or not."

"Did you like it?"

"College, in my day, was a little different than it is now, I would imagine. The seventies were a little freer, a lot hazier, and England was in the thrall of a musical and cultural revolution. Nowadays, I imagine the closest you get to a revolution is the Spice Girls."

Willow giggled. "You know who they are?"

"They've rather permeated the world, haven't they? Like some foul stench?" He grinned and moved over to sit next to her. "Or do you like them?"

"Sometimes, the world needs cheesy pop music, Mr. Giles. You'll do well to remember that."

"Right." He nodded, resting his elbows on his knees. "This is an important decision, Willow. It's the first step into your adult life. Don't choose based on someone else's experience. Don't choose based on what you think you should do or what you feel obligated to do. Choose based on what makes your heart beat faster with excitement. Choose what gives you that high you get when you find something new that you never knew before. Choose what will make you happy."

"What if I don't know?"

He thought for a long moment then stood up. "Grab your things."

"What?"

"Come on. Grab your things. I'll get my coat and we'll go."

"Go where?"

"Just trust me."

***  
Giles grabbed Willow around the waist and lifted her up onto the tombstone. "I can't believe you picked here." He mused as he took one of the ice cream cones from her hands and leaned back next to her. "Of all the places to want to go to think…"

"During the day, it's peaceful here. I used to walk here, whenever I needed to think about anything other than what girl Xander was obsessing over. I'd read the tombstones and imagine what life must have been like for them. Sometimes, there would be a whole love story, based on what few words they managed to immortalize in stone."

He nodded, understanding what she meant. "I used to walk around the woods outside the Watcher's compound. They were supposedly haunted, ghosts dancing through the leaves and such. But I would go, about an hour before dusk and just walk, losing myself in the sounds I could only hear there."

Willow sat silently, imagining what he spoke of. Licking her ice cream, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "I got a letter today."

Ah, the root of the problem. Giles continued eating. "Did you?"

"An acceptance letter."

"You've accumulated quite a collection."

"It's the one I've been waiting for. The one that makes it all tough." She finished her cone and jumped off the tombstone, pacing in front of him. "I mean, I was considering all my options. I could go almost anywhere in the world and see and do anything I wanted to. I have the world at my fingertips, all I have to do is say yes…well, and send them a lot of money, in some cases. But even with all that, the only place I imagined myself was here. At Sunnydale University with Buffy and Xander and Oz and Cordelia. And, I mean, even though stuff isn't the same anymore, I still see it, you know?"

He nodded. "I do."

"And so I'd made my choice. It was S.U. all the way. Until this letter came." She stopped her pacing, digging the now crumpled letter from her pants pocket and handing it to Giles. "It came today."

He unfolded it, smoothing the creases. The letterhead caught his eye and all the pieces fell into place. "Oxford."

"Oxford." She nodded. "Oxford as in one of the best schools in the world. Oxford as in all that history and knowledge and opportunity. Oxford as in…" she blushed, "knowing a little more about the world you come from."

"I'm from the same world, Willow." He stared down at the paper, not reading the words. "It's an older, more…tweedy world, but the same in all the important ways."

"Giles, I…" She stopped again and moved to stand in front of him, looking up into his eyes. "I want to go. I want to learn and study and…I want to be that Willow. The Willow I would have been if I'd never met Buffy. Well, okay, the Willow I would have been in I'd never met Buffy and gotten it through my thick skull that Xander was never going to notice me. I want to be the Willow who can go to Oxford and not worry about what she's leaving behind."

"You can't let this dictate your future. You have an amazing opportunity, Willow."

"I can do amazing things here, Giles. My question is…well, how do I know it's the right choice? I have so much here. I have family and friends…and friends that are more like family than my family. How do I leave all that behind?"

"You don't. You keep it with you. I keep the things about England that I love in my heart. They're always with me." He reached out and took her head, holding it between both of his hands. "What you must do, what you have to do, is look at both options and decided if you did one, would you look back and wonder 'what if'?"

"Everyone wonders that, Giles." She stared at their hands. "It's human nature."

"Wondering is different than being hurt by it. If you make the wrong choice, when you look back, you'll be sickened by the thought that you were too afraid. If you make the right choice, you'll wonder vaguely then go back to everything else."

"What would you do?"

He shook his head, "Willow, I'm not an 18 year old witch, with a boyfriend who's a werewolf, a best friend who's a Slayer and another best friend who's a…Xander. I can't put myself in your shoes, Willow. They simply wouldn't fit."

She nodded, "I guess you're right. Even if you forgot about having a friend who is a librarian."

***  
Giles looked up from the book in his hands as Buffy walked into the library. She looked depressed and he straightened immediately. "Everything all right, Buffy?"

"No," she shook her head. "It's Willow. I'm a little worried."

"About?"

"Well, this whole college thing is a lot of pressure on her. And coming on the heels of the whole Xander/Oz thing, well, I don't know that she's up to handling it."

"Willow is strong."

"I don't know that she's strong enough." Buffy began leafing through a book. "Not that it might be a moot point if we don't stop the Mayor, but I was…is it selfish of me to want her to stay here? I mean, does it make me a bad person if I want my best friend not to leave me?"

"No, Buffy. It makes you quite human." He picked up his tea and took a sip. "I'm sure Willow will make the right choice."

"She admires you, you know. I think she even had a little crush on you at first. I'm just afraid…she got accepted to Oxford. I'm afraid that she might want to be more like you and follow in your footsteps." She closed the book and bit her lower lip. "Can't you…discourage her or something?"

"No."

"But she'll listen to you."

"Which is precisely why I can't try and influence her decision. Buffy, Willow is a smart girl and she'll choose what is best for her. Surely that's what you want?"

She nodded, sadly. "But I also want what's best for her to be what's best for me."

"Perhaps it will." He smiled at her. "She'll make the right decision, Buffy."

"I hope so."

***

"Is this seat taken?"

Giles shook his head, scooting over so that Willow could hop up onto the tombstone. "I've stolen your place, I'm afraid."

"No problem. In Sunnydale, there are plenty of tombstones to go around." She bumped her shoulder against his and smiled. "I wanted to talk to you again, if that's all right?"

"Of course."

"I…I made a choice. My decision." She refused to look at him, and he felt his heart beat faster, expecting devastation. He hadn't thought she'd leave. He hadn't expected her to make this choice. "And I wanted to thank you for helping me come to it."

"I didn't tell you anything you didn't already know." He watched her, watched her not look at him. "May I ask? What was your choice?"

"Well," she turned to him finally, smiling. "Buffy and I just spent the last hour consuming mochas like they were going out of style. I decided…well, I don't need to go to Oxford. I mean, why go to where they make Giles's when I've got the original right here?"

He chuckled, shaking his head all the while. "An excellent point. I wonder why I left that out of my argument."

She reached over and took his hand, staring down at it. "Will you tell me something, Giles? And you have to promise to be honest. I've already made my decision and told Buffy, so I can only change it under penalty of death, but I need to know."

"Of course."

"If I stay? Will you be disappointed in me?"

"Willow, I could only be disappointed in you if you didn't take full advantage of any opportunity you're given. If you make this a wonderful, interesting and diverse college experience, I'll do what I can to make it stuffy, British and, in honor of my graduating class in the seventies, as psychedelic as possible."

"I don't like black lights."

"You're not supposed to like them, Willow. You're supposed to like what you do while they're on."

She blushed, turning away from him. "Oh."

He chuckled again and got off the tombstone. "I promise that I don't have any black lights. Well, certainly none that I'd use on you." He pulled her down after him and they started walking, side by side.

"And I won't do drugs."

"Okay."

"Or summon demons."

"Agreed."

"And I don't know if I can actually appreciate the music…"

"Willow, the only thing left of the seventies when you take all that away is the gas shortage."

"Right. Then I guess I'll walk everywhere."

"And the orgies."

She stopped walking, blushing furiously. "Well…um," Giving him a wide smile, waiting for his blush, she shrugged. "I'll have to get back to you on that one, okay?"


End file.
